Free web site hosting

What should you be looking for in a free web site hosting service?

First, before you sign up, you should consider if the limitations are acceptable. You are likely to get limited disk space and bandwidth, so if you have plans to build your site, or to make money from it, consider if free web ite hosting is really the best choice.

If you decide to go with a free host, consider that you and your visitors will see a lot of advertising on your pages. This is what enables the web host to offer you free space of course - you display their ads for them. There are two issues here. The advertising may be in the form of banners, popups or popunders. They may be so annoying and intrusive that they will drive your visitors away. They may also be for products or services which you find unacceptable.

If possible, look at other sites on the free host and see what the advertising is like. Failing that, set up a quick site of your own on the free host and see if you would find the amount and nature of the advertising acceptable.

You may think that 'advertising free' free web site hosting is a better choice, but these sorts of hosts tend not to last long, as they get overwhelmed by the takeup by spam sites, and they often don't survive more than a few months.

Another limitation which some free hosts impose is that you don't get independent ftp access to your web space - you must use their internal builder to create your pages. In the long run, this is a serious restriction and you should probably avoid sites like this.

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